QuintZine: A Career and Job-Hunting Newsletter – The September 12, 2005

QuintZine

A Career and Job-Hunting Newsletter

Volume 06, Issue 15

ISSN: 1528-9443

September 12, 2005

What You’ll Find: Resumes

Notes from the Editor

Feature Article: Why Hire a Professional Resume Writer?

Special Feature: Ten Resume Tips

Bonus Feature: Is Your Resume Lost in the Great Internet Void?

QuintZine’s Q&A with a Career Expert: John Logan

Quintessential Site: Featured Career Web Site of this Issue

The Career Doctor: Answering Your Questions

Q TIPS: Quick and Quintessential Tips to Guide Your Job Search

Notes from the Editor: About this Issue…

September is Update Your Resume Month.

September is the perfect time to start a new approach to career care-taking, according to the Professional Resume Writing and Research Association’s Update Your Resume site.

While children are embarking on starting the new school year, adults should also be taking stock of their professional attributes and career value by updating their resumes.

Keeping your resume up to date is a proactive approach to meeting unforeseen market and company changes, as well a way to reevaluate personal worth and prepare to take the next step in career growth. Too often job-seekers avoid taking this crucial step until the last minute, when they need their resume yesterday.

By updating your resume in September during the official update month, job-seekers have the opportunity to better control and champion their own futures.

This issue of QuintZine offers lots of tips for taking the resume reins.

Like so many of us, we are stunned and saddened by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. To help victims get back on their feet, Chandler Hill Partners is offering Jobs4Katrina.com to assist the victims of Katrina with employment-related issues and provide a place to bring employers and the job-seeking victims together.

Feature Article: Why a Resume Writer?

Why Hire a Professional Resume Writer?

by Katharine Hansen

In my five years as a resume writer, the vast majority of resumes I have seen have been relatively weak. As I now begin to step away from resume writing and return to the college classroom as an instructor, I still see considerable value in the idea of hiring a professional resume writer. A well-chosen resume-writing professional can truly make a significant difference in a job search.

Special Feature: Ten Resume Tips

by Sherri Edwards

A thoughtful, carefully constructed resume, using information you have obtained through research about a specific company and industry, does more than ensure that you get an opportunity to interview. It also prepares you for the interview and will contribute to your ability to effectively make a case for hiring you, allowing you to close the deal! Each resume should be tailored to the job you are applying for. Broad or generic resumes may (by luck) get you an interview, but they will not prepare you for answering tough or specific questions when you get there.

Bonus Feature: Resume Lost in Cyberspace?

Is Your Resume Lost in the Great Internet Void?

by Deborah Walker

In the age of email and online job services, job hunting suddenly became much easier. Or did it? Sometimes it’s hard to know if your resume is actually reaching someone’s desk — or is lost somewhere in the great void of cyberspace.

The blog is a great way to stay posted on the most recent events occurring in the career and employment fields.

QuintZine’s Q&A with Career Expert: John Logan

"A resume should be a statement of the skills a job-seeker would bring to a new job, as well as an outline of accomplishments in past positions," said John Logan in the Q&A interview we did with him. "Because the resume is often the only data an employer receives from a candidate, the bullet points must provide context for past work; providing details like number of people supervised, size of project budget, estimated cost savings in dollars (or other appropriate specifics) helps an employer place each candidate in the context of the organization. I find that most resumes do not provide

enough details for me to understand the scope of the candidate’s experience, but are merely a restatement of a job description, which is not helpful to me as an employer."

Read more of Logan’s advice, including resume pet peeves, his thoughts on resume keywords, the importance of cover letters, positive and negative employment trends, top skills employers seek, mistakes and myths of job-hunting, and tips on breaking into management consulting in our full Q&A with him.

Quintessential Careers Site: Resumania

"Resumania" is a term coined by Robert Half, founder of the specialized staffing firm Robert Half International Inc. (RHI), to describe errors made by job-seekers on resumes, applications, and cover letters. He first published Resumania in his company newsletter back in 1966 and encouraged readers to submit items that they came across. Soon, he began receiving a steady flow from colleagues throughout the United States. Its popularity grew, and the never-ending supply of Resumania continues today.

The examples at Resumania come from clients and businesses worldwide over the years. States the site: "Although the bloopers are a lot of fun, the purpose of Resumania is not to disparage the individuals who made them, but to emphasize the importance of professionalism in resume preparation, which means avoiding:

personal information

attempts at humor

misusing or omitting words

extraneous or inappropriate information

awkward phrasing

It pays to carefully proofread all resumes and cover letters before submitting them to potential employers — just one typo may knock you out of the running for a job!"

The Career Doctor Answers Your Questions

Maria writes: "I’d been job-hunting without much success when a recruiter at a job fair told me he thought my resume was really bad. I was shocked! I thought I had a pretty darn good resume. What do I need to write and improve my resume?"

Catherine writes: "I don’t think I have ever seen either of my questions (or problem) in your columns. Both deal with background checks. Recently I was terminated from a position I had held for only a month. They claimed to have received information from a law-enforcement agency showing that I had committed a crime. After checking with the agency mentioned, I learned they had no such information. I suspect that a former employer or someone in his office where I worked previously made the false accusations. Can I take legal action?

My second questions now that I back in the job market, is that some of the places I have applied to are requiring that I sign a release to allow them to get my credit report. I feel this is an invasion of my privacy since none of positions I have applied for have any connection to money or finances. Is this something new?"

Anonymous writes: "I have just completed my bachelor of business administration degree with majors in management and finance. I’m interested in positions in human resources (primarily), but there are also positions in finance that interest me. I’ve created d fferent versions of my resume that target the differen career fields each highlighting relevant experience and accomplishments, and I’m tailoring my cover letter to particular positions as well. But now I’ve found two distinct positions that both interest me, and they’re at the same large company with the same contact person. How might I gracefully pursue both jobs?"

Emily writes: "I am starting a new career and have not been successful in landing a job. I am interested in working for a bank, but have limited experience. About 99 percent of the jobs advertised requires one to be experienced. How do I get in at entry level with no qualifications? I am a quick learner and a team player. I am 50 years old but look about 40. In today’s working world, 40 is old, so I have an extra dilemma."

Perhaps it’s the rush to submit their resumes before other job candidates or too much focus on creating a visually appealing document. Whatever the reason, many job-seekers overlook a critical step in the employment process — ensuring their application materials are clean and blunder-free. Thirty-four percent of executives surveyed recently cited typos or grammatical errors as the most common resume mistake.

The national poll includes responses from 150 senior executives — including those from human resources, finance and marketing departments — with the nation’s 1,000 largest companies. It was conducted by an independent research firm and developed by specialized staffing service Accountemps.

Executives were asked, "In your opinion, which of the following is the single most common mistake job seekers make on their resumes?" Their responses:

Leave off references. Today’s hiring managers assume you will provide these contacts. Remember to give your references a copy of your resume and advance notice that they may be called.

We’d Love You to Link to Quintessential Careers!

If your school, organization, business or other entity has a Web site, we welcome you to link to Quintessential Careers. If you already have a link from your site, we want you to know we appreciate it. If you don’t have a link to us, please send a request to your site’s Webmaster to establish a link to Quintessential Careers. Thanks so much!

For more details (including sample HTML copy), see our Link to Us page.

Don’t ever want to miss another issue of QuintZine? Get a free subscription to the email version of QuintZine by completing our subscription form.

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Dr. Randall S. Hansen is founder of Quintessential Careers, one of the oldest and most comprehensive career development sites on the Web, as well CEO of EmpoweringSites.com. He is also founder of MyCollegeSuccessStory.com and EnhanceMyVocabulary.com. He is publisher of Quintessential Careers Press, including the Quintessential Careers electronic newsletter, QuintZine. Dr. Hansen is also a published author, with several books, chapters in books, and hundreds of articles. He’s often quoted in the media and conducts empowering workshops around the country. Finally, Dr. Hansen is also an educator, having taught at the college level for more than 15 years. Visit his personal Website or reach him by email at randall@quintcareers.com. Check out Dr. Hansen on GooglePlus.

Katharine Hansen

Katharine Hansen, Ph.D., creative director and associate publisher of Quintessential Careers, is an educator, author, and blogger who provides content for Quintessential Careers, edits QuintZine, an electronic newsletter for jobseekers, and blogs about storytelling in the job search at A Storied Career. Katharine, who earned her PhD in organizational behavior from Union Institute & University, Cincinnati, OH, is author of Dynamic Cover Letters for New Graduates and A Foot in the Door: Networking Your Way into the Hidden Job Market (both published by Ten Speed Press), as well as Top Notch Executive Resumes (Career Press); and with Randall S. Hansen, Ph.D., Dynamic Cover Letters, Write Your Way to a Higher GPA (Ten Speed), and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Study Skills (Alpha). Visit her personal Website or reach her by e-mail at kathy@quintcareers.com. Check out Dr. Hansen on GooglePlus.

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